Chapter Text
A silence like Frisk had never experienced before fell over their little impromptu gathering, nothing but the shrill of the wind, the rush of the river just beyond the thin treeline, and Sans' hot, nicotine saturated breath washing over her face giving any evidence that the world had not frozen entirely. Every inch of her was cold, from her frazzled nerves to her still shocked and sluggish thoughts to her slush saturated clothes (not even being forcibly held beneath the massive sack of bones that Sans was now could warm her, the heat his body radiated extending even beyond the thickness of his fur-lined jacket), and she only shivered all the more fervently at the dire recompense that not only Papyrus' words, but his presence and knowledge of her humanity, meant.
Without the barrier of their friendship, even her Papyrus had had a duty to capture her and take her to the king of monsters, in the name of his people's freedom from their long imprisonment beneath the mountain. Intimidating, daunting, and somehow even taller than he had looked at a distance, this Papyrus likely intended the same... and didn't know her from Eve to have an inkling of a desire to spare her.
Was he going to force a confrontation? She doubted very much that she would survive such a thing, if he was as strong as her intuition told her he was; he radiated an aura of menace and danger, and not just because of his ridiculously edgy clothes and spiked armor. If he was even half as strong as Sans, she wouldn't stand a chance, and she had no illusions that he intended to stop just short of killing her like her own version had. Without resets, she would die... and Sans knew that.
Her gaze moved from what she could see of Papyrus from her position at his booted feet and to Sans' taut jawline, dotted with ash and sap and beads of nervous sweat. He had said he would protect her, wouldn't let her leave him... but would he move to stop his own brother? Papyrus was the most precious person in her Sans' life, often even superseding her herself (she'd never minded that fact, forgiving and lenient when he had needed to run off to meet his brother even in the middle of dates; it was honestly a given that Papy came first)... it couldn't be so different here, could it?
He wouldn't dream of hurting his baby brother... would he?
She shuddered, trembling with the cold and the fear in her thoughts (she had seen his capability for violence, felt it inflicted on herself... but she couldn't fathom him being capable of hurting Papyrus, in this or any world) and the reflexive clench of Sans' claws around her wrists when he felt her move beneath him, doing her best to convince herself that this would, somehow, not end with someone's death, and saw her captor flick his own gaze away from the tall figure of his brother and to her, the flecks of scarlet light illuminating his sockets mere pinpricks in his indecisive trepidation.
Frisk had never seen him look more unsure, even during the interlude in their... activities the night before (she nearly retched all over his jacket at the recollection, at the belated realization that he was pressed against her just as intimately now as he had been then, get off, get off, get off- ), his jaw shifting in emulation of a nervous swallow and his broad ribcage pressing her further into the snow-covered path beneath her as he took a deep and (hopefully) calming breath.
The firm and dogged resolution that overtook his vacillation gave her no comfort, though, even as he shifted to lift himself off of her and to his knees, a welcome reprieve from the contact of his body to hers. His grip on her wrists was released as well, making her fingertips tingle as the blood rushed to them again, but he obviously didn't intend to leave her to her own locomotion anytime soon, seizing her upper arm instead and jerking her off the ground to pull her around his side and behind him, as though hopeful that not being able to see her would erase her from Papyrus' memory.
Sans' bones had trembled, as he had looked down on her in consideration... but his hand on her arm was steady, now, an unmoving iron shackle that spoke to the just as steely resolve that burned in his gaze. He stood completely, dragging her off the ground along with him to stagger to her booted feet precariously, forced to cling to his jacket to keep from flopping to her weak knees from the suddenness of their motion. His expression made her shiver even more than the wind slowly but surely starting to spread frost across her soaked clothes, dread building in the pit of her stomach like a ball of hot lead.
Still holding her behind him with one hand, his claws easily wrapping all the way around her upper arm to bite into the material of her parka, Sans steadied his stance purposefully, defensive and watchful but clearly decided on the path ahead of him.
“it ain't how it looks,” he finally said, gravelly voice as cautious as the way he angled his body in front of her protectively, and Papyrus, folded arms tightening across his broad chest, observed the pair of them in silence from his narrow, scarred sockets before letting out a disbelieving snort, his cape snapping crisply behind him in the pull of the frigid wind.
“NO? BECAUSE IT LOOKS RATHER INCRIMINATING, BROTHER. CARE TO ENLIGHTEN ME AS TO 'HOW IT IS'?” he invited leadingly, raising a single, judging brow over his just as castigating sockets, and Frisk felt more than saw Sans's body tense aggressively in response to his brother's mocking quotation of his own words, his broad shoulders hunching and his hand, already wrapped too tightly around her upper arm, tightening even further. His chest rumbled with a low, warning growl, the sound of which she was much too familiar with to mistake for anything else, even beneath the shriek of the wind surrounding them all, and he completely ignored her attempt to garner his attention, when she pulled plaintively and urgently at his sleeve, hoping to distract him enough to calm him from his already explosive temper.
No, it was much too late for that, for much more of anything than being shoved further and unceremoniously behind his bulk as he forced them both a step backwards along the scattered stones of the meandering woodland path, Frisk's boots scrambling with the agitated monster’s much larger sneakers and the straps of the pack that he had ripped from her hands only moments before as she went. The only thing that kept her falling, again, was his grip on her arm, so tight that she knew she was going to have a bruise in the shape of his hand there later (if she even lived that long-), but Sans was paying very little attention to her fumbling, his gaze locked on Papyrus unflinchingly, his jaw gritted so tightly she could hear it creaking.
“there a point? or are ya jumpin' ta your own conclusions like ya always do,” he snarled meanly, spiteful in his protective rage and showing none of the fear that she was no longer certain he was even capable of feeling (maybe she had been wrong... maybe he wasn't able to feel anything but anger and selfish desire after all, twisted by this world and his indulgence in his own power-), and Papyrus, a bland, expectantly impatient expression overcoming his sharp face that looked so familiar it nearly gave her whiplash, tapped the toe of one of his boots in the snow at his feet, his folded arms tightening across his chest.
“TRY ME,” he insisted, unmoving in his spot and clearly willing to hear Sans out, and from where she stood, Frisk lowered her brows in consternation, peeking again around her vicious captor's billowing jacket sleeve to gaze up at the face of her former best friend. In the same way that the world had changed the other monsters here, he was also hardened and scarred by grief and hardship, his magic clearly forming itself defensively in reaction to the world that had hurt him so, but even beneath the sharp bones, and the black leather, and the yellowed scars and the sharpened teeth and the scarlet magic, she could still see the monster that had been unable to hurt her, right here on the path they stood now, so many years ago.
And in accordance with that, he wasn't acting the way that Sans had described him (and threatened her with, more times than she could count) at all... he had made no move to begin a battle right off the bat, was making a point, even, to seemingly find out what was going on before making any decisions or conclusions.
Could he be reasoned with? Was he not nearly as bad as Sans had made him out to be, and could perhaps be made to understand she meant the monsters no harm, and could be of more use to them alive than dead? Or... or was he seeing through someone else's eyes, when he looked at her, the same way that the others had seemed to today before they had shown her mercy, like her mother had when she had let her go? Could a previously cruel hand be moved to clemency through the memories he had of her from her own world?
She still wasn't sure how much she liked that train of thought, honestly. She didn't like what it meant for her and the monster that held her captive even now, that had done such terrible things to her and clearly intended to inflict even more on her... but the likelihood of it, with all the evidence mounting up in support of it, was impossible to ignore. She had no other answer to explain why Toriel had let her go at the very last moment, why Grillby had asked some of the things he had, why Bonnie had broken out of her instinctive fear of Sans to help her...
Why Sans himself had stayed his hand only moments before, when he never, ever had before, saying nothing of his intimate, out-of-place knowledge, things he should have no way of knowing without having seen them himself.
It hurt to consider it, hurt more than anything he had ever done to her to think that with all he knew, all the things they had been through together, that he could still have... h-have... raped her… but it was quickly becoming evident that she was going to have to face that fact as a reality, rather than refusing it any longer for the sake of her already broken heart. The betrayal was secondhand to the scene unfolding here before her, as well as her future here in the Underground, and bitter as the taste of it was on her tongue, she was going to have to swallow it down until she truly had time to consider it.
Outside her considerations, time went on without her, Sans' bony lip line curling into a sneer and his heels digging into the ground to center his weight defensively. He spat a wad of congealed magic onto the path beside himself crudely as he did, the hand not still curled around Frisk's arm clenching into a fist at his side.
“always pokin' your nasal cavity where it don't belong, pap. same shit, different day,” he snapped, completely unconcerned with helping his brother understand anything about what was going on and resolutely ignoring Frisk when she pulled at his sleeve to attempt to get his attention, and Papyrus let out a frustrated sounding snort, unfolding his arms to prop his clawed hands on the protruding processes of his hip bones.
“HIDING THINGS LIKE A GUILTY CHILD DESPITE YOUR AGE, SANS. SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY,” he mocked nastily, obviously much too used to dealing with Sans' terrible temperament and not willing to give him an inch of wiggle room with it, and Sans, his already rigid sneer sinking into a snarl, let out a haggard, rough growl, raising his hand to jab an accusatory finger at his younger brother.
His breath froze as it left his mouth, carried away on the ever-increasing, galling wind; the chill of it sank into Frisk's sodden clothes with a will of its own, freezing her to the bone in an instant and, only just now removed from most of her adrenaline high, coming to the realization that she was freezing. Shuddering and shivering and miserable, she leaned into Sans' warm jacket without even thinking about it before pulling away again immediately, scowling at herself, the broad expanse of his back, and the flakes of snow blowing by on the wind all.
“what's goin' on ain't none a your fuckin' business. you'll walk away if ya know what's good for ya,” Sans was retorting, outside the reverie of Frisk's distaste for her own action (she'd honestly rather freeze to death than depend on him for warmth, just the feeling of his jacket and the thick bones beneath them was enough to send her memory reeling to the night before and she couldn't think of that right now, she couldn't-), and Papyrus, a heavy and put upon sigh escaping him, tapped one clawed forefinger against the curve of his bared iliac crest impatiently, a bony brow rising over an impassive and unmoved socket.
“YOU KNOW I CANNOT DO THAT. SHE IS THE KEY TO OUR FREEDOM, AND IT IS MY DUTY TO BRING HER TO THE KING. OR HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT, IN YOUR NEVER-ENDING QUEST TO FUCK EVERYTHING YOUR DICK CAN FIT IN? I CAN SMELL YOU ALL OVER HER, EVEN FROM HERE,” he disparaged with a wrinkled nasal ridge, sending the sliver of Frisk's face that he could see an ugly, derisive sneer, and she turned the brightest, hottest red she felt she ever had in response, withdrawing from view completely and clasping a hand to her mouth in an attempt to hold back the instinctive, aggressive retch that had overtaken her just at that moment. She'd known he'd left his mark on her body, and that he claimed the villagers would have known to steer clear of her because of his scent on her... but she hadn't thought it was that scent, one that could mean only one thing, the thing she so desperately was avoiding even thinking of.
It took everything in her not to vomit up the magical remains of the burger she'd eaten, all over the back of Sans' coat. She could taste the bile of it on the back of her tongue, tingling and bitter and vile, and she clenched her eyes shut against the tears and the vision that sprang to mind both, her knees weakening and her blood only growing colder than it already was, in the pervasive chill of the winter-bound forest. She was forced to grasp that jacket, the one she had been disparaging only a moment before, to keep from falling to the slushy, ash-covered path at her feet, bereft of all strength at the reminder of just what had placed that scent around her, all over her... inside of her.
No... no, she couldn't lose it like this, not now... she needed to be present, she needed to be calm, but- but she could smell him, him and the cigarette he'd been smoking and the overwhelming duress of his magic and gods, the scent of his bones, she knew it all too well from the night before-
She whimpered before she could stop herself, her gloved fingertips digging into her cheeks and a few tears escaping her clenched lids to trail down her frozen cheeks in searing hot trails of misery, and outside of her storm of her utter wretchedness, Sans both felt and heard the sounds of her shameful sorrow, knew exactly what (and who) the cause of it was, and only felt the flame of his temper ignite all the hotter, his own shame and disgrace and self-loathing spilling over into virulent and venomous hatred, anger spilling from between his sharpened fangs in a sneer of sarcastic diatribe.
“you don't know what you're talkin' 'bout, shithead. you got no fuckin' idea, but that's no surprise. always talkin' out your fuckin' ass, ever since that damn promotion,” he spat acerbically, at the same moment broadening his stance to willfully block his brother's view of Frisk as she had her breakdown behind him (his grasp on her arm, while never loosening, was more gentle now, his thumb sweeping along the soft inside in his best attempt at soothing, though she was in no mind to even notice the change), and Papyrus, beyond frustrated, threw his hands into the air in exasperation, rolling his sockets up to the high cavern roof above and clicking an invisible tongue against the backs of his fangs.
“I COULD HAVE AN IDEA IF YOU'D TELL ME. ONCE UPON A TIME, YOU WANTED TO BE FREE OF THIS PLACE AS MUCH AS THE REST OF US. WHAT CHANGED THAT? I HAVE TO ASSUME THE HUMAN, THE SAME AS I ASSUME THAT SHE IS THE ONE YOU'VE BEEN KEEPING IN THE SHED. BUT WHY?” he pressed, nodding his skull towards where Sans was now fiercely keeping Frisk out of his line of sight, and Frisk, hiccuping intermittently and wiping shakily at her nose with the back of her hand, paused as best she could in her upset, intrigued by what she had heard and trying her best to slow her out of control breathing so she could listen better.
“i ain't gotta explain shit t'you,” Sans immediately shot back, his hackles rising and a growl resonating in his hollow chest, deep and grating enough to rumble through her entire body through their point of contact, and Papyrus snorted derisively, folding his arms across his chest poignantly.
“WHEN DO YOU EVER, EVEN WHEN IT IS OBVIOUSLY IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO SACRIFICE OUR RACE'S FREEDOM IN THE NAME OF IT.”
So she'd been right. Papyrus was trying to give Sans time to explain himself, to try to understand why he was defending and hiding (among other things...) a human, and seemed unwilling to jump to any conclusions until things had been explained to him better. Sans seemed utterly blind to this, though, as he was to most things that went against how he saw the world... he wasn't being forthcoming at all, wasn't picking up on any of the openings Papyrus was leaving for him. In fact, he was only growing more and more belligerent as the minutes wore on... he looked like he was preparing himself for a fight.
She should honestly try to run. He seemed distracted enough that she could potentially slip her arm out of his grasp before he could tighten his hand again, and with his brother holding his attention, she could maybe make it into the swamp before, and if , even, he caught up with her again. The idea was a tempting one, one that rose to the forefront of her mind as his thumb circled her arm again softly and made her want to be anywhere but in his hands... but the one the followed immediately afterwards, strengthened by the power she knew all too well that Sans held, stopped her before she even tried to pull away. It reminded her of the fear she had had only moments before that he would harm anyone, even his only remaining family (she assumed, at least... the talk in the bar had led her to believe that), and of the many long years of dear friendship she had shared with the monster facing down the demon that was her captor.
Papyrus had been her friend before anyone else, when she herself had been friendless, lost in a world she neither knew nor understood. He had been there for her countless times afterwards, too, both above and below, all through the years since the barrier had fallen and all the struggles she had faced. He was a rock, a beacon of light and hope even in the darkest of times, and she would be remiss in saying that this Papyrus, as different as he looked and as different as his life had been, could possibly be that much different.
She knew his soul. She knew the goodness that was inherent to it, and could see, even now, that he was doing everything in his power to avoid doing the duty the king had laid on his shoulders, for his brother's sake.
A voice, bitter and frightened and hoarse with remembrance from the night before, told her to take care, to remember the lesson she had learned the hardest way possible, but she could not, would not, be beholden to it. She would never be able to live with herself, knowing she could have made a difference here and had chosen her own skin instead... she couldn't just leave, not with the menace that Sans presented to her best and oldest friend.
She had to try to stop him.
“Sans-” she began to interject in a broken stage whisper, pulling at his sleeve again and doing her best not to quail instinctively when he turned his skull to meet her eye with one of his flaming, sparking irises, but he cut her off before she could even begin to speak her mind, shaking his sleeve out of her grasp and pulling her further behind him with the hand still wrapped around her arm.
“shut it an' stay behind me. i ain't got time fer you distractin' me,” he dismissed, squaring his shoulders and cracking his jaw in preparation for the fight he clearly saw no other way around, but Frisk wasn't going to just let herself be pushed away and ignored, not when there was a life on the line. She grappled with his hold on her arm frantically, doing her damnedest to pry his fingers apart so she could distract him, move to stand between them, something .
“Sans, please , tell him-” she begged as she scrabbled her trembling fingers against his iron grip, thrashing and pulling the hardest that she could, but as with every other time she had attempted to fight against the sheer strength of the much larger monster, she couldn't even budge him an inch, her best attempt to free herself a laughable one that did nothing more than aggravate him. His grip tightened as a warning growl rumbled through his chest, his gaze snapping to her again as he gave her a shake that nearly threw her off her feet entirely, and in the time it took her to recover her senses, dizzy and weak from the weeks of malnutrition she had just suffered through, Sans had turned back to face down his brother, his lip line curled disparagingly and his temper a raging inferno.
“one last chance, pap... for old time's sake. forget ya saw us, an' let us go,” he offered bitingly, telltale sparks of magic flickering in his palm evidencing his readiness to summon a weapon to hand, and Papyrus, his gaze flicking from that palm, to what he could see of Frisk, and back to his brother's face, swallowed quite obviously, shifting his own stance into a defensive posture.
“...I CANNOT, SANS. NOT WITHOUT A VERY GOOD REASON,” he insisted, the conversational ball still firmly set in Sans' court, but the older skeleton monster was done bandying words back and forth, not even once seeing the offerings of understanding for what they were. He only let out a short growl of expectant fury, snorting out a frosty breath tinged with red sparks through his nasal cavity, and finally released his grasp on Frisk's arm, nudging her backwards along the path behind him firmly enough to knock the still slightly dizzy woman to her knees.
“get back, frisk,” he commanded as, with a clench of his hand, he summoned a spiked cudgel into his hand, spinning it expertly as he stared his younger brother down from across the path, but Frisk, scrambling awkwardly to her feet again from the slushy ground (god, her pants were completely soaked through now-), lunged for his arm frantically the moment she had gained her feet, trying to pull him away from the battle he was insistent on having.
“No! You can't, he's your brother !” she shouted, digging her heels into the muddied snow to try to drag his arm back (she'd rather his anger be directed at her, she couldn't handle seeing Papyrus come to harm just because he was a stubborn ass-), but Sans shook her off with a snort and a jerk of his head towards the skeleton monster now summoning up weapons of his own, what appeared to be cruelly sharp lances made entirely of bone.
“he's seen ya, an' knows what ya are. he knows where i'm takin' ya, too, an' it's his fuckin' duty ta turn ya over t'tha king. ain't no way around it,” he snarled dismissively, shoving her back again insistently as he prepared himself to charge at Papyrus, but Frisk clung to his hand even as it tore at her jacket and scraped furrows into her palm, desperate tears flecking her lashes.
“He wants to know why you're doing this, Sans! He's asking ! Tell him ! I know Papyrus, he-” she started to reason, but with this point, the volatile skeleton's already wire-thin temper snapped, his spiked bat shoved into a drift of snow and his clawed hand clasping both of her wrists together into one large palm. He lifted her clear off the ground in this grasp, too, snarling directly into her face so venomously that flecks of spittle dotted her flinching face.
“he ain't your papyrus, woman, same as i ain't your precious sans. he wouldn't get it, none of 'em would. only way we can live in any sorta peace is if he's outta tha picture,” he barked coarsely, reminding her without an ounce of regret of his words the night before, and took two long strides to reach the treeline at the side of the road, shoving her back against the trunk of one of the towering pines painfully hard. “now stay here, and shut tha fuck up 'afore i make ya.”
With this done, Sans turned to stump his way back to where he had left his spike studded club, dusting his hands off as though having done his job quite well; Frisk only hesitated a moment, catching her breath from having it scared right out of her, before attempting to charge right back after him... but found herself yanked back against the tree's trunk after only one step, her hands sticking to the place over her head where Sans had slammed them.
A cursory look told her all she needed to know, and sent a current of trepidation through her already churning gut... the same glowing red shackles that Sans had used to keep her hands bound the night before were locked around her wrists now, binding her in place irrevocably. She jerked against them desperately, her chest starting to heave with choked sobs as she looked between them and the tense, quickly shrinking space between the brothers on the path.
No... no, this couldn't be happening... she couldn't be helpless in this, there had to be a way!
Papyrus, his gaze flicking between his once again approaching brother and the human he had unceremoniously bound to a tree out of the way, spun one of his javelins in his gloved palm idly, carefully sidestepping to a section of the path that would give him more room to maneuver as Sans jerked his bat out of the mound of snow he had left it in.
“YOUR HUMAN IS CORRECT, SANS. A FIGHT ISN'T NECESSARY. TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON, AND IF I CAN AT ALL GRASP YOUR REASONING, I WILL SPEAK ON YOUR BEHALF WHEN I DELIVER HER TO ASGORE,” he offered again, nodding his head at the weeping and struggling human in the background, but Sans was beyond being reasoned with at this point, letting out a snort and settling into a ready stance.
“that ain't gonna happen, fuckface. this ends here,” he grunted, narrowing his sockets and giving his little brother one last glare, and with a turn of his heel and a self-satisfied grin, he was gone in a wisp of red smoke, flashing through spacetime to reappear behind Papyrus and, with a wide arc of his arm, attempt to smash his skull in. Papyrus had been more than ready for this maneuver, though, taught through many violent battles with both his brother and other monsters, and sidestepped his attack easily, pivoting on his own heel and deflecting the club with one lance and a shower of sparks.
Sans wasn't put off for long, though the strength of his attacks seemed to throw him slightly off balance, and was back to hotly pursuing his much more lithe and agile brother around the path only a moment later, smashing craters in the ground and knocking chunks out of trees as Papyrus led him on a merry, slightly sweaty dance. That cunning agility was quickly running out, though, and with every teleport and every swing, Sans came just a little closer to meeting the mark. He was a bull in a china shop, smashing his way through anything that lay in his path without care and with very little difficulty (yet another display of his ridiculous, LV boosted strength), and both his tenacity and his ruthlessness were starting to close the distance between himself and his agile quarry.
Frisk, while bolstered in the beginning by the taller monster's ability to avoid Sans' brute strength and magical prowess, had begun to struggle in earnest with her bonds again, her worried tears streaking down her face as she pulled and twisted and whimpered as her skin protested the abuse. There had to be a trick to it, there had to be... every kind of magic had a ploy to beat it, she knew it from her time spent battling monsters. She'd never encountered red magic in her time fighting monsters, though, and no matter what she tried, she just couldn't seem to find a way to trick her way out of it.
Damnit... damnit, she had to stop this...
Across the path, there came a tearing of fabric that sent a jolt of panic through her, but when she turned her gaze back to the pair on the path, only a few scraps of Papyrus' scarf fluttered down to the scattered flagstones, its owner's panting breaths fogging the air as he deflected most of the blow and spun out of the way of the worst of its damage. Sans' smirk was broad in victory at the sight of it, his sneakers smashing the scraps of blood-red material into the muddied snow; his skull was streaked with sweat, his own breath a heated cloud panting between his sharpened fangs, but he showed no signs of slowing, making ready to make another leap with a bloodthirsty grin.
Papyrus, however, looked far more than done. He let out a weary sigh, squeezing his sockets shut and leaning on one of his lances, as though to catch his breath.
“I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WON'T SIMPLY TELL ME WHY YOU WOULD LAY YOUR LIFE, AND THE UNDERGROUND'S WELL BEING, ON THE LINE FOR ONE DISGUSTING HUMAN. WHY YOU WOULD RATHER TAKE ME “OUT OF THE PICTURE” THAN GIVE HER UP. THERE MUST BE A REASON,” he pressed, reopening his sockets to raise them to meet his brother's gaze, and Sans scoffed as he turned on his heel and slipped out of reality, popping back into it just a hair behind his brother. Papyrus only barely moved in time to avoid his club's arc, stumbling and nearly falling before regaining his posture and his defensive stance both.
Sans guffawed at him openly in response, pausing for a moment to heft his bat onto his shoulder.
“ya wouldn't understand even if i told ya. y'ain't cared 'bout why i do anythin' or how i feel in half a century,” he snarked, tapping the grip of his weapon rhythmically on his broad shoulder, and Papyrus, his brows lowering over his sockets, let his posture loosen as he stood up to his full height, shaking his skull in his consternation.
“THAT IS NOT TRUE. ALL I DO, EVERY DAY, IS CARE ABOUT AND WORRY FOR YOU.”
“you got a real funny way a showin' it.”
“HA! POT, MEET KETTLE. YOU ARE SO EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED, YOU WOULD NOT CARE EVEN IF I WERE ABLE TO GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL THAT I DO, IN FACT, CARE GREATLY FOR YOU!”
Frisk, outside of the sphere of the brothers' squabbling, was still fighting with the shackles locked around her wrists, nearly breathless with cold and pain as a fine trickle of blood leaked down her arms from the pressure wounds she was inflicting on herself. She was too driven to care, though, squinting up at the bonds in the quickly lessening light of the caverns and craning her neck to try to see if there was something, anything different about them- and that was when she saw it.
There was a crack, a fine but jagged crack, at the top, on both sides of them. A cursory strain against one of them proved that they weren't just her imagination, either... the crack spread with the pressure, spidering its way down the side of the magical restraint and promising, with enough work, her freedom from them.
She set to work immediately, her gaze flicking between the shackles and the brother's still spitting insults at each other on the path, but Sans tired of the banter quickly, lowering his bat from his shoulder and tapping it against the side of his sneaker instead. A piece of Papyrus' scarf hung from one of the nails like a banner... like an omen, even.
“none a that matters now, do it? you've gotten in my way for tha last time,” he dismissed, rolling his skull on his shoulders, and without giving any warning, without even drawing his weapon back, he teleported one last time, this time, upon re-materializing, sweeping his leg to knock Papyrus' out from beneath him. The lanky skeleton monster was on the ground the next moment, scrambling to regain his footing, to retrieve the javelins that had spun away as he had fallen, anything, but Sans' sneakered foot came down on his armored chest only a second later, holding him in place without question, the spiked cudgel leveled at his face in obvious threat.
Papyrus lay panting there for a moment, the flecks of magic in his sockets flicking between the bat and his older brother's face, before the fight seemed to drain from him completely, a look of complete and utter sorrow taking over his expression that hurt to even look upon.
“...do I really mean so little to you that you could simply kill me and move on?” he murmured, his carrying, commanding voice little more than a whisper beneath the shriek of the wind, and Sans paused there, his victorious sneer melting into a slash of discordant contrition. The very next moment, though, there was the resolution that Frisk had feared back in the set of his jaw, back in the steeliness of his gaze, and he moved his weapon to make that last, fatal swing.
“...i ain't got a choice here, bro,” he muttered back, a sorrow she hadn't even known he was capable of in the weight of his deep, dark voice, but he got no further than that. With a mighty wrench of her wrists, shards of red magic gouging their way into her skin to leave behind deep wounds in their wake and a painful, wrenching snap jarring its way down her arm to numb it from her fingertips to her elbow, Frisk at last managed to break free of her restraints, and sprinted the short distance it took to reach the pair of brothers, where they occupied the near center of the path.
“ Stop!! ” she screeched, and launched herself over Papyrus' head, curling around his skull and grasping at the sharp plates of his armor to keep herself there. She sent her monstrous captor as fierce a glare as she could manage as she lay there too, daring him to try to continue the arch of that swing. With widened, shocked sockets, Sans was forced to pivot on his unstable footing and nearly knock himself off his feet to keep from gouging a dent in her skull, his cudgel shooting out of his grip and flying off into the treeline to rustle a shower of snow from the boughs of several trees in the near distance.
It was a miracle that she hadn't quite had time to consider (she'd been too busy trying to save Papyrus' life to think too much of her own) that he was able to stop it at all, to be frank, the reality that her death had come within an inch of her once again setting her limbs to trembling as the adrenaline rushed in her veins yet, and it was clearly a miracle that Sans himself was debatably grateful for as well, the searing flecks of magic in his sockets hurriedly sweeping over her to ensure he hadn't hurt her before his face creased once again into vicious fury, a large, punishing hand extending to tangle itself into her hair.
“ get tha fuck off a him right now , bitch, ” he snarled possessively, yanking hard enough to pop her neck uncomfortably and bring more pained tears to her eyes, but she only clung more tightly to the spiky, very confused looking monster she had curled herself around, digging her fingers into his armor plating until her knuckles turned white and the pain in her surely injured arm screamed in the back of her head, a cacophonous symphony when paired with the tearing at her scalp.
It didn't matter. She would not be moved. She would not let this happen when it could be prevented.
“I don't care about your stupid rules right now, Sans! I won't let you kill him! It doesn't have to be like this!” she cried out, glaring up at the enraged skeleton through the frigid tears streaking her cheeks and gathering on her frosted lashes. He opened his fanged mouth to retort, likely to remind her of the necessity of it, but she spoke over him this time, her determination glimmering to life in her chest and presenting to her skittering mind the only way forward. She didn't know where it would lead her... a frigid bloom of fear shot through her heart at just how unsure that path truly was. But from where she knelt in the snow, her fight or flight response singing in her blood and a seething, bloodthirsty, menacing beast of a monster threatening the worst for both her and her best friend, it truly was the only way.
If this didn't work... if she was wrong... she didn't want to even consider it.
“If you won't tell him, let me try to reach him!” she blurted, her mind wheeling with the many things she had felt and seen and suspected ever since waking in the flower room those weeks ago, and whatever it was that Sans had been expecting her to say, it hadn't been that, his opened jaw snapping shut and his heavy, bony brows lowering over his sockets. His grip on her hair loosened, in the fullness of his surprise, and he blinked, once, twice, attempting to understand what she could possibly be getting at before giving it up and leveling a suspicious glare at her.
“tha fuck are ya-” he started to question, the low rumble of his bass voice an unspoken threat, but Frisk had come too far to stop now. If she attempted to halt the impending boulder that was her current line of thought, it was sure to crush her. She had to keep going, no matter the cost or where it took her. That frigid spike of fear remained embedded in her heart, true... but her tenacious will was far stronger.
“You remember me. You remember what happened between us, from... from my world,” she revealed, meeting the flaming weight of his gaze head-on, with as little fear as she could manage, and felt, in the place within her chest she knew her soul dwelt, a painful twinge when she saw her monstrous captor all but flinch , the flecks of light in his sockets shrinking and flickering in what she could only term culpability. She carried on, despite the seizing of her cold breath in her chest, despite the pain lancing through her heart as all she had thought and feared began to fall into its place. He had known. He had known , and still- “Y-you're... you're not my Sans... but you remember. I don't know how or why, but I know you do.”
He had no words to say, in response to her gentle, tremulous accusation. He couldn't even hold her gaze; after only a moment longer, his sockets fell away, turned to glare harshly at the ash strewn path she knelt on, his jaw clenched and his chest rising and falling rapidly. It was enough to send a crack halfway through her already damaged and bleeding heart, a fresh wave of tears to haze the line of her sight, but she didn't have time to dwell on the complete and utter betrayal of his deeds. She reached up, a shaking, freezing cold hand half the size of his, to touch the clawed phalanges wound into her hair, blinking at the tears to attempt to clear them from her sight.
“Mom remembered me, and spared me. Bonnie did too, and so did Grillby. If all of you did... he must remember me too,” she said softly, imploringly even, and Sans spent another moment glaring a hole into the path before returning his gaze to her, a single, scarlet iris considering her from the corner of one cracked socket. He seemed momentarily distracted by her touch at his hand, his grip on her loosening enough to give her twisted neck some much-needed relief.
“...what's that matter,” he grunted after a moment spent gathering his thoughts, clearly unable to see how this could possibly change anything, and Frisk, sitting up enough to lessen the strain on her neck a bit more but not enough to remove her protection of the very puzzled looking monster she still knelt over, moved her free hand to hover over her heart, the soul at her center that spread encouraging warmth through her in droves, pressing her onward despite her fear and her suffering and her heartbreak.
“In my world, Papyrus and I... we were friends. Best friends. That has to be in there somewhere. People-” she explained carefully, flicking her gaze down to look fondly on the sharp but ever so familiar features of her longtime friend and companion, but stumbled in her words, the pain and anguish resurfacing despite her very best efforts to avoid it. “...p-people don't just forget how much they mean to each other.”
Sans clearly felt the meaning behind those words as well. A bitter and scorned frown pulled at his already acrimonious scowl, his brows pulling low over his once again averted gaze and his grip on her hair tightening again. He was clearly vacillating, rolling the options around in his head as he cracked his jaw and shifted his stance, and Frisk, reaching up to gently touch his hand again, let her heartbreak and her desperation show, her tears escaping her control once again to roll along her already salt-stained cheeks.
“Please, Sans. Please, ” she begged without compunction, without grace or reserve or a thought wasted on her humility. Her only thoughts were on the life she so desperately wanted to be spared; she didn't much care what she needed to do to preserve it. And by some miracle, be it from an unseen god or the stars themselves or through a fondness that she hadn't thought him capable of, she watched Sans visibly relent, his shoulders losing their tension and a huff of heated breath fogging the air before him before he withdrew his hold on her completely, standing back up to his full height and gazing down on both her and his supine brother.
“you got one shot. make it fast,” he ordered, reaching a hand into one of his jacket pockets to procure a cigarette from within, and stalked a few steps away as he slid it between his teeth and lit the end with a snap of his clawed fingers. Frisk slumped gratefully, resting one hand on Papyrus' chest armor and rubbing her scalp with the other (her hair must look like an absolute disaster), but jumped nervously when Sans, from his position a few yards away, let out a fierce and possessive growl. “an' stop fuckin' touchin' him!”
She sent him a disgruntled glare from beneath the upset fringe of her hair, bald and unimpressed (was this really the time for that?), but obediently scooted a short step away from the younger skeleton monster, tucking her gloved hands under her arms and curling in on herself to attempt to preserve at least a little of her body heat. The adrenaline of the fight, and her subsequent flight, was starting to drain away, and the cold was beginning to seep into her sodden, ice-encrusted clothes, saying nothing of the pain of the wounds she had inflicted on herself while escaping Sans' restraints. She felt a little lightheaded, in fact... was she losing a lot of blood? Or was it just from so much exertion after spending so long chained to a wall?
Either way, her head was swimming and her gaze was a little fuzzy at the edges. Not a very comforting sign.
Papyrus, in his position in the center of the ash and slush-strewn path, sat up on his elbows, squinting suspiciously between Frisk, his smoking brother, and Frisk again, obviously completely thrown by the entire situation. He spent another moment in silence as he considered the situation before, with measured curiosity, he spoke.
“I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU TWO ARE GOING ON ABOUT, HUMAN, BUT WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU INTEND TO ACCOMPLISH, I CAN ASSURE YOU-” he began, his voice once again carrying the commanding power that he obviously preferred to speak with, but Frisk interrupted him before he could dismiss her efforts entirely before she had even begun, reaching up a shaking hand to pull her scarf further down her neck to bare her face to his inspection.
“Papyrus, look at me. Really look at me,” she beseeched, finger combing hanks of her tangled hair away from her face and sending him a trembling, hopeful smile, and despite the put upon sigh he let out, Papyrus did as he was asked, inspecting her features with a critical and detailed eye closely enough to make her feel quite self-conscious. She thought there was a flicker of recognition in his gaze, after he had spent a few moments looking her over, anticipation springing to life in her chest to warm her for a split second, but it was immediately dashed again when he merely tutted, shaking his head and sending her a scornful glare.
“THIS IS RIDICULOUS. MY BROTHER MUST HAVE ADDLED YOUR MIND, FOR YOU TO THINK IN ANY WORLD THAT I, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE PAPYRUS, WOULD EVER BE FRIENDS -” he began, impatient and disbelieving and callous, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Sans shrug, flicking his cigarette butt into the snow at the side of the path. No... no, she had barely gotten a chance! There had to be something else, something that would help him remember-
And that was when she recalled, with startling clarity, the thing that had started it all, that had truly begun their long friendship and had been a running, ridiculous joke for going on a decade. She couldn't help the smile that overtook her face, or the laugh that escaped her, shaking her head and meeting the prickly skeleton's gaze once more.
“Do you remember our date?”
Both monsters stared at her like she had grown an extra head. Papyrus sat stock still, fanged mouth still hanging open from his half-completed diatribe, as though expecting the punch line to some very ill-timed and badly received joke, and Sans... she'd seen him furious often enough to know that he was on the brink of a violent meltdown, and all that fury was directed at her.
“ excuse tha fuck outta me?! ” he barked, snarling and rabid as a dog defending its territory from intrusion, but though Frisk felt her soul quail at the ire in his dark and intimidating tone, though she felt the aura of jealous menace he exuded as he took a thunderous step forwards, she steeled her resolve and fiercely ignored him, taking a tremulous breath and fixing her gaze on Papyrus, where he was propped up before her on the path.
He wasn’t going to intimidate her out of this. She wouldn’t let him.
“It was after our fight. You found me so ridiculous and weak that you spared me, even though you knew what it would cost you, and all of the monsters. You'd done the same the entire way up to that point... saving me from the worst of your traps, helping me solve puzzles that would have been too hard on my own. You were kind to me, even though your duty was to take my soul for your freedom,” she recalled, her gaze slipping away from reality and into a time far in the past but still so very close to her heart, and for a long, tense moment, one in which she feared his rejection of her attempt to kindle recollection in him would be certain, he merely stared at her, the startlingly bright red flecks of magic in his slanted, narrowed, scarred sockets flicking over her face clinically. He pondered her in that tenuous silence, his chest rising and falling almost in time with the sigh of the wind through the snow-laden boughs of the trees beyond their little gathering, before, so slowly that it seemed he questioned the motion himself, he opened his fanged mouth again.
“...YOU FLIRTED WITH ME, IN THE MIDDLE OF BATTLE,” he said carefully, his brows drawing low over his sockets and his gloved hands closing into fists against the frigid stones of the path he lay upon, and Frisk, her heart stuttering in her chest, felt her face split into a grin so wide her cheeks ached, her gaze wobbling with grateful but withheld tears and a breath she hadn't even known she was holding escaping her in a rush.
He remembered. He remembered .
Sans was much less excited about the pronouncement, where he was growling to himself and pacing in the background. He let out another harsh snarl, rounding on them both at the new information.
“she what?! ” he inquired fiercely, his gaze snapping with the fullness of his fury as he directed it at the side of her face and his clawed hands clenching at his sides, as though barely restraining themselves from inflicting violence on those around him (likely very true), but again, Frisk had no time or patience to waste on him, ignoring the small, terrified, penitent creature cringing within her chest and sending the towering, intimidating monster a sideways glare.
“Can you just be quiet? This isn't about you,” she snapped, waving a hand to shoo him away, and though he looked perfectly willing to castigate her for her bravery, his own glare creasing into a hard, cold snarl of ire, he seemed, somehow, to see the wisdom in letting her continue her exchange with his brother and merely let out a menacing hiss of dissatisfaction before turning on his heel and stomping away, fishing in his pocket for another cigarette and leaving a steaming trail of footsteps in his wake.
She'd likely regret speaking to him like that later, but for the moment, she didn't care. She was far more concerned with continuing to nurture the recollections that Papyrus was beginning to have, and turned back to him with a hopeful, watery smile, scooting closer to the gangly monster's side and setting her balled up hands on her knees eagerly.
“I did. I was like that, flirting with everything and everyone in sight. And all of you put up with it too, kind and generous to a fault. Monsters are such funny things... would rather be friends than hurt each other. At least... at least where I come from. And you were no exception. You'd never had a friend before, not really... and I liked you. You were funny, and clever, and so much larger than life. Hehe... Powerful, popular, and prestigious-” she lead, arching her brows and biting her lower lip in her hope that he would finish the rest of his catch phrase, and before her, the fierce, sharp Captain of the Royal Guard's face lit up like a Gyftmas tree, his jaw parting and his sockets widening in the fullness of his surprise.
“-THAT'S PAPYRUS. THAT'S... THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, I'VE NEVER TOLD ANYONE... HOW -” he queried breathlessly, pushing himself up so that he was sitting, cross-legged, before her in the melted snow, staring into her face as though seeing her, truly seeing her, for the very first time, and Frisk could only smile up at him, so wide and so bright and gods, she was right, he remembered her, this was incredible, she could hardly believe it-
“We went on our date after the little dog stole your special attack. Do you remember him?” she queried, scooting closer to him and laughing in remembrance of the little dog that had seemed to follow her everywhere across the Underground, and Papyrus let out a heavy, annoyed sigh at that, rolling the lights in his sockets and sending a comical glare towards the middle distance that looked so familiar it made her chest ache.
“THAT DAMN DOG, ALWAYS GETTING WHERE HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME. KEPT HANGING AROUND BECAUSE SANS ALWAYS FED HIM,” he recalled with aggravation heavy in his tone, but stopped short then, his brows lowering and his gaze moving back to her face searchingly. “...I DON'T UNDERSTAND. THESE... THESE ARE NOT MY MEMORIES.”
Frisk nodded kindly, then, and raised a hand to touch the center of her chest, bowing her head and swallowing heavily. She had to blink away a few tears, wiping at the ones that escaped her control with the back of her free hand, and looked back to him when she was able to, her smile smaller but just as sincere.
“They're from my world. We're friends there, we've known each other for ten years. You used to take me to school in your convertible. Bright red, just how you always wanted. I bought you a wig, once, because you wanted to feel the wind in your hair-” she reminded him, giggling to herself at the memory of that ridiculous blonde wig and all the fun they had had with it (teaching him how to braid, subsequently trying to untangle the curls from between the joints in his fingers, dressing up a napping Sans in it and several layers of makeup-), and a matching grin stretched across Papyrus' clever face, a chuckle escaping him before he could restrain it.
“-IT BLEW OFF ON THE HIGHWAY, ALMOST CAUSED AN ENORMOUS ACCIDENT. STARS, I...” he trailed off, his gaze moving away to a memory only he could see and his smile dropping off his face completely. His sockets widened, his breath catching in his chest and, along the edges of his sockets, a gathering of glittering, scarlet tears appeared, accompanying the shaking, gloved hand that rose to grasp at his torn scarf. “I-I CAN SEE THE SKY AND FEEL THE SUN -”
Frisk gave him a moment of silence to gather himself, to allow him to take in the sights and feelings and emotions currently roiling within, before gently reaching out to touch the back of his hand, where it lay against his armored chest, deftly ignoring the snarl that Sans let out in response and sending him a soft smile when he had turned back to her, understanding and kind.
“You used to spend all day out in the sun, trying to get a tan. Even that first Gyftmas, remember? I had to bring you your present out on the lawn. I gave you spaghetti, just like every year, because-” she began, her eyes glittering with the beloved memories, but Papyrus was the one to interrupt her this time, his smile slowly crawling back into place on his face again and his hand shifting to take hers into his larger palm.
“BECAUSE OF THE GIFT ON OUR DATE. I HID IT-”
“Under your hat!”
He chuckled, shaking his head and gazing back at her in fond silence for a moment, a gaze that carried with it all the weight of the many years that they had both spent in each other's company, before placing her hand back into her lap and folding his hands into his, looking her over critically before going on matter-of-factly.
“YOUR NAME IS FRANCENE. YOU HATE THAT NAME, AND PREFER TO BE CALLED FRISK. YOU HAVE A SCAR ON YOUR LEFT KNEE FROM OUR BATTLE THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE A BONE. YOU ARE MY FIRST AND VERY BEST FRIEND, OUR RACE'S PRINCESS AND SAVIOR, AND... AND... YOU ARE MY BROTHER'S-” he listed off, obviously growing more and more impressed as he went on, before stumbling over the last realization, the unspoken words catching on his unseen tongue as his gaze shot over to meet Sans' burning gaze. The weight of those words was a deadening one, a sick and painful one, but it was a truth necessary to this connection, and so Frisk nodded her head, her former smile lost behind solemnity and reluctance.
She was admitting to being her Sans’ mate. Not this one's. It was different.
“Yeah,” she murmured, averting her gaze to where her hands were once again pressed against her folded, saturated knees (they had balled into fists without her even realizing it, the tension of the moment unmistakable), and Papyrus looked over her one moment longer, the weight of his gaze a judging one, before wiping at the tears clinging to the cracked bone beneath his sockets with his broad palms, pushing himself to his feet, and extending a hand to her to assist her in standing as well. She took it, once again ignoring Sans' possessive growling, and went about dusting the worst of the frost and ash from her absolutely ruined clothes as Papyrus turned to face his brother, folding his arms across his chest as he did so.
“SANS. IS ALL OF THIS TRUE? NOT SOME SORT OF TRICK, OR SPELL, OR... OR TOMFOOLERY?” he questioned, nodding his head at Frisk to indicate their former conversation, and Sans, biting at the end of his cigarette with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, nodded his skull in affirmation.
“'s true pap. dunno how, but it is,” he muttered around his cigarette, shrugging one shoulder to accompany his explanation, and Papyrus glanced over his shoulder at Frisk, taking in the collar peeking through the wrap of her scarf and, likely, the scent of him surrounding her (gods, she hated knowing the other monsters had been able to smell him on her, it made her sick to even consider-), before turning back to the shorter monster.
“AND SHE IS YOUR SOULMATE TOO?”
That one she wouldn't stand for.
“I'm n-” she began to deny vehemently, stepping forward to set the record straight, but the moment the words began to leave her mouth, she found them stopped up, a skeletal hand held solidly against her lips and the hot, broad chest of her “mate” pressed against her back. His other hand grasped the wrist of the hand that immediately attempted to claw his away from her mouth, squeezing just enough to make her injured arm complain painfully, and his ribs vibrated against her back as he spoke for her, rumbling with the deep bass of his voice.
“yeah. she is. and she'll quit bein' a mouthy little bitch now if she knows what's good for 'er,” he growled, digging his claws into her cheeks just enough to communicate the message thoroughly (she was to shut up and obey, or suffer the consequences), and Papyrus watched the two of them scuffle for a moment in judging silence, his sockets narrowed and his mouth a slash of discordant uncertainty, before he, at last, seemed to come to a decision, nodding his skull once, both firm and resolved.
“VERY WELL,” he pronounced, the crisp wind plucking at his scarf to wave it behind his back like a flag of all but literal surrender, and both Sans and Frisk halted where they stood grappling with each other (she had bitten his hand hard enough to make her jaw ache, in her attempt to get it away from her mouth, and he had pulled her arm up behind her back hard enough to bring tears to her eyes again), blinking at the suddenly far more affable skeleton facing them down across the path. A spring of hope grew within Frisk's heart at the sight and the potentially good turn the situation had taken, weakening her attempts to escape the larger, stronger male's hold on her as she gazed back at him with optimistic anticipation filling her eyes. Could it really have been that easy?
And besides that, would Sans accept his capitulation?
“' very well ' what?” Sans asked after a moment spent puzzling over his meaning, his grip on his captive shifting as he felt her tense body loosen in his grasp, and Papyrus rolled the lights in his sockets irately before waving a hand in their general direction, indicating Frisk and her entanglement with the large, violent monster both.
“I WILL SPARE HER. I WILL NOT STAND IN YOUR WAY, AND I WILL NOT HARM HER OR REPORT HER TO THE KING,” he elaborated, nodding his head in the vague direction of the monster capital, far across the great Underground, and Sans' sockets narrowed suspiciously, his nearly burnt out cigarette simmering between his bared fangs and leaking a thin trail of smoke to be blown away in the strengthening wind. Frisk shifted uncomfortably in his grasp, all too aware of the sharp curves of his bones prodding at her through his thick clothes (she, for the moment, wasn't completely freezing while held in his extremely warm arms, but that brought her very little comfort), but even Sans' closeness, and his hand's lingering presence covering her mouth, was not enough to dampen her the multitude of emotions that rushed through her at those words.
She'd really and truly reached him. She'd helped him remember her from across space and time, had moved his soul to mercy, at the cost of a freedom that he (and every monster) had been waiting for for centuries. It meant, at the same moment, that Sans had similar memories of her as well, all but revealed through his culpable silence moments before and his many disclosures of out of place knowledge, and had done the complete opposite... she would have to confront him about that soon, discover just how much he recalled and what his true intentions were.
For now, she could only ford the current situation as best she could, her free hand pulling at the thick, clawed phalanges still clasped across her mouth and her trapped one aching with a creeping numbness that she truly didn't want to consider.
“why not? cuz she's yer friend in her world?” Sans demanded callously, outside the circle of her thoughts and vacillating emotions, his tone as derisive and scornful as his expression, and though one of Papyrus' sockets twitched temperamentally at the disdain in his brother's voice, though his gaze flicked with what looked more and more like concern to the hold Sans had on the small, fragile looking human woman, he went on despite his reservations, brushing the palm of one hand along his arm to brush a streak of ashen slush away from the bared bone of his humerus.
“NO. A SIMPLE FRIENDSHIP IS NOT ENOUGH TO COST MY PEOPLE THEIR FREEDOM. HER BEING THE OTHER HALF OF MY BROTHER'S SOUL IS, HOWEVER,” he informed Sans matter-of-factly, turning his gloved hand to inspect his claws idly, as though he were commenting on something of as little concern as the weather, and Frisk felt more than saw Sans freeze where he stood, his gaze locked on his younger brother and his jaw hanging open enough to allow his cigarette to fall free, into the slush at their feet. The howl of the wind overtook the heavy silence, the creak of the tree boughs with their blankets of snow and the rush of the river just out of sight beyond the sparse treeline; even with the crush of the sounds around them, though, with the heavy weight of her captor wrapped around her, everything felt cold and still, the only heat the heavy stare the brothers traded in that fell moment.
He was so distracted that Frisk was able to completely pull away from him, though he immediately caught her again before she’d gone more than two steps, one hand twisted into the hood of her stained, soaked parka and the other wrapped around her waist to hold her in place against him. He spared her a coarse growl for the attempt, punitive and promising punishment the moment he had the chance, before turning back to his brother, his expression tight with a complex mix of emotions not even he seemed capable of comprehending.
“i- pap, i don't- i didn't think that’d matter to ya,” he murmured at last, and Papyrus sighed heavily, shaking his skull and rubbing one of his temples with his thumb.
“I KNOW YOU THINK LITTLE OF ME AND OUR FAMILIAL CONNECTION, SANS... BUT I HAVE NEVER FELT THE SAME. YOU ARE MY BROTHER. YOU RAISED ME AND DID THE BEST YOU COULD, EVEN DEALING WITH YOUR OWN PROBLEMS,” he reminded him, raising his brows meaningfully, but though Sans opened his mouth to make some sort of retort, his cheekbones colored a pale red and his eyelights shrinking in his sockets, Papyrus carried on, raising his hand to indicate that he wasn't yet done speaking.
“I CARE FOR YOU, THOUGH YOU ARE A CANTANKEROUS, VIOLENT ASSHOLE AND TRY MY PATIENCE GREATLY, AND ALL I EVER WANTED WAS FOR YOU TO BE HAPPY AND STOP HURTING YOURSELF. THERE WAS NO WAY TO COMMUNICATE THAT TO YOU, THOUGH... YOU PUT VERY LITTLE STOCK IN EMOTIONAL TIES, I KNOW THIS WELL. SO I DID MY BEST TO SUPPORT YOU FROM THE DISTANCE YOU FORCED BETWEEN US INSTEAD, AND HOPED, IN TIME, THAT MY EFFORTS WOULD REACH YOU,” he concluded, a sad smile overtaking his expression as he laid bare what was, likely, a century worth of effort in attempting to ford the difficult relationship the brothers had shared, and a more frequently familiar flash of guilt streaked across Sans' face in response as he turned his gaze to the toes of his sneakers, his shoulders slumping slightly and his frown turning down even further in his melancholy.
“...i thought ya hated me,” he muttered, his hands clenching where they clasped Frisk close to him, and Papyrus considered him in silence for a moment before crossing the path to stand at his side, one gloved hand rising to pat his shoulder. Sans sent him a sideways look from the corner of his socket, cautious and considering, and Papyrus shook his head, snorting slightly.
“I HATED WHAT YOU WERE DOING TO YOURSELF, AND YOUR REFUSAL TO BETTER IT. YOU ARE CHANGED FROM WHO YOU USED TO BE... I REMEMBER A VERY DIFFERENT MONSTER, FROM MY YOUNGER YEARS. MY HOPE IS THAT HAVING A REASON TO BE BETTER MAY FINALLY BRING ABOUT A REVERSAL. I WAS NOT ENOUGH. PERHAPS SHE WILL BE,” he suppositioned, his hope accompanied by a slightly bitter laugh and another pat delivered to Sans' shoulder as he nodded his head to indicate Frisk, where she stood shivering and straining in his grasp, and Sans' expression creased further with his chagrin, his brows heavy over his sockets as his gaze dropped to look on her as well.
There were several things she could say in response to such a claim. There was a vicious, slighted desire to mention just how much “better” he was acting now that he'd found his supposed mate itching at the back of her mind, so acrimonious that it bittered the back of her tongue like an acid, but she swallowed it down, for the moment, unwilling to drag Papyrus into the situation. She didn’t want Sans to snap on him again, should he choose to be chivalrous and take offense to the way she was being treated…
And then on the other hand, one which the blighted voice at the back of her mind whispered in her ear, there was the possibility that he wouldn’t care at all. That what Sans had done to her was all but standard, in this universe, and that she should expect such treatment. Her stalwart heart rebelled against the thought immediately, refusing to believe that they were all so callous and cruel as that… but did she really know? The monster that she knew best in this universe was the one that had hurt her so badly, and had threatened more pain upon her all too soon. Did she really know for certain that they were all better than he was?
She didn’t, and didn’t know how long it was safe to lean on past memories from another world to test such a theory. It had worked thus far, but who knew when the breaking point would be?
All she knew, for the moment, was what lay directly before her. Papyrus had decided to spare her for the sake of his brother (she couldn’t hold that against him in the least, he still truly didn’t know her enough to make it for her), and Sans was showing more remorse for the way he’d treated his brother than for what he’d done to her. That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but gods, it stung deep within her chest, forcing her to avert her eyes and duck her chin into her mussed, damp scarf to avoid him seeing her shamefully watering eyes. Whatever he thought of that motion, though, he kept to himself, turning back to meet his brother’s gaze and letting out a heavy, bitter sigh.
“i... i'm sorry, pap. i didn't think... i ain't done my best with ya. kinda figured y'were tired a my shit an'... never tried ta fix it,” he mumbled, adjusting his grip on Frisk to pull her into a wretched facsimile of a close embrace; she stomped on his foot the hardest she was capable, her arms crushed against between her chest and his and her face all but buried in the ruff of his coat, but he ignored her with little more than a grunt of pain and a jarring slap of his hand to her rear, jolting a squeal from her lips. Papyrus snorted at this, patting Sans’ shoulder one more time before stepping away and folding his arms across his breastplate, his skull tilted to the side consideringly as he eyed the sight the pair of them made.
“YES, WELL. COMMUNICATION WAS NEVER MY STRONG SUIT EITHER. BUT ENOUGH OF THIS FOR NOW. I SUPPOSE THE NEXT COURSE OF ACTION IS TO DISCUSS WHAT IS AHEAD IN REGARDS TO... THIS SITUATION,” he mused, gesticulating between Frisk and him with a lazy wave of his gloved hand, and Frisk, grunting and spluttering to remove bits of nicotine tinged fur from her mouth, pulled away from her captor’s chest enough to level a glare up at his jawline, still dotted with drying spots of sweat and sticky droplets of ash stained sap.
“Do I get a say in this?” she snapped in aggravation, pounding a single fist against his chest extremely ineffectually, and Sans didn’t even glance down at her, merely tightening his grip on her enough to constrict her breathing slightly and smirking cruelly back at Papyrus, whose brows had lowered over his sockets as he watched the small human struggling in his brother’s grasp.
“nope,” he chuckled morbidly, only loosening his grip slightly when his quarry had stopped attempting to beat his sternum in with her fists, and Papyrus hesitated a moment, his jaw opening and closing several times before he found the words he was looking for, his gaze continually, and worriedly, flicking down to the top of Frisk’s head, where it was visible in the embrace of Sans’ arm.
“SANS, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH YOUR MATE-” he began carefully, obviously well versed in his brother’s explosive temper (and, likely, in how cautious monsters seemed to be in advising others in how to handle their mating rituals… seemed like dangerous ground, from what she’d seen thus far), but Sans didn’t even let him finish his sentence, cutting him off with a scoff and a derisive sneer.
“she'd give her soul up ta set us free, pap, sayin’ nothin’ of tryin’ ta run off an’ get herself killed out there. she don't get ta decide nothin'," he growled dismissively, sending the human woman in his grasp a smoldering, meaningful glare that carried with it all the threats he had made, every ounce of his displeasure with her, and despite herself, despite everything she had sworn and her best efforts, Frisk's heart stuttered within her chest, her spine shrank, and she shivered where she stood in trepidation, shrinking slightly beneath the weight of that punitive stare like a flower wilting beneath the summer sun. He seemed pleased by this, his cruel smirk crawling back across his face like a crack across heated glass, and returned his gaze to his brother with gloating satisfaction. "as for plans, was gonna take 'er to tha old house, hide out there.”
Papyrus considered this with the careful silence of one weighing the odds, tapping a clawed phalange against his humerus as he thought over his reply. Frisk had paused as well, in her cowed silence, her brows furrowed and her ears pricked to the conversation Sans seemed determined to have without her.
He had mentioned that he had another place, a safer place, that he intended to take her, somewhere that they could be together without worrying about her safety. He had also mentioned, just a few minutes before, that Papyrus knew where it was, making him a liability in its safety. The way he spoke of it now… was it the house he'd grown up in? The house his mysteriously missing parents had raised the monster he had become?
“PREFERABLE TO THE SHED, CERTAINLY, BUT STILL RATHER DANGEROUS," Papyrus stated then, interrupting her thoughts and gathering the attention of their little grouping. Frisk turned her gaze, as well as she could in the tight embrace Sans held on her, to the towering monster, watching as he tilted his skull to the side inquisitively. "THE POPULATION IS MUCH GREATER, RAISING THE LIKELIHOOD THAT SHE WILL BE RECOGNIZED BY SOMEONE THERE, AND THE LOCALIZATION OF THE MORE CAPABLE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL GUARD COULD PROVE TO BE A PROBLEM.”
Sans, momentarily speechless, looked as though he'd been hit upside the head with a brick, blinking and taken aback by what seemed like perfectly common sense. He raised one hand to rub the back of his skull, tightening his grip on the back of Frisk's parka with the other, and furrowed his brows deeply, shifting his jaw to one side in his puzzlement.
“...oh yeah. 's true, i didn' think a that," he admitted slowly, grumbling to himself and kicking the toe of one sneaker at a half melted snow poff, but Papyrus wasn't nearly done, raising his bony brows and motioning towards the middle distance with a casual hand wave.
“SAYING NOTHING OF THE CONDITION OF THE HOUSE. IT'S BEEN WHAT, A HUNDRED THIRTY YEARS? SURELY IT IS IN NO LIVABLE STATE,” he pointed out, jutting out one sharp hip bone and leveling his brother with an expectant stare, and Sans, his cheekbones flushing a dull red, blustered for a moment in silence, huffing and shifting his weight back and forth before shrugging and looking back at Papyrus in defeat.
“uh... was gonna... stay at the resort 'til i'd fixed it up,” he admitted, his free hand lowering to play idly with the chain hanging from his belt loops (it jingled ominously against his bones, far too reminiscent for her liking), and if Papyrus' brows weren't connected to his face, Frisk swore they would have flown straight off his face and up to the cavern roof, he raised them so high.
“...METTATON'S RESORT, WHERE ONE OF THE BIGGEST HUMAN FANATICS IN THE UNDERGROUND LIVES? THE SAME RESORT THAT IS DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO NEW HOME?” he asked in clear consternation, bemused and stunned at the same moment by Sans' logic, and the older skeleton's face turned three shades redder at this, a humiliated growl rumbling in his chest even as, clutched to his side, Frisk let out a mocking chortle. He snarled out loud at that, defensive and ridiculed, and turned to his brother with snapping sockets, his magic crackling in the air so strongly that Frisk’s hair stood on end, frizzy with static, and made her soul quail within her chest, the feeling of his claws scraping against her spine through her coat nearly driving a whimper to her lips.
“aight, look asswipe, i didn' say it was a good plan-”
“IT WAS A TERRIBLE PLAN. SHE WOULD BE DISCOVERED WITHIN DAYS.”
“so what d’you suggest then, since yer so fuckin’ smart?”
Papyrus chuckled, as unimpressed by Sans’ temper as Frisk was terrified by it (why… why couldn’t she be strong? She’d faced down death more times than she could count, had felt her soul shatter ad nauseum, but the sound of his anger, the touch of his hand, was enough to send her reeling-), and jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the path back the way they had come, and the village that lay along it.
“THAT YOU BOTH STAY HERE. SNOWDIN IS VERY SMALL AND REMOTE, FAR FROM THE LARGER CITIES AND COLD ENOUGH TO KEEP MOST MONSTERS AWAY. THE SECTION OF THE GUARD THAT LIVES HERE ARE, TO PUT IT BLUNTLY, MORONIC, AND IN ADDITION, I CAN BE OF USE IN PROTECTING HER WHEN YOU ARE UNABLE TO,” he supplied, puffing his chest out with no small amount of pride, and Sans, his sockets narrowing with offense, let out a virulent, rabid growl, his hackles rising and his grasp on Frisk’s lower back tightening, pressing her against him even more closely.
“y'sayin' i can't protect my mate?” he hissed venomously, as though daring anyone to challenge him on his ability to be a good mate, and through another mouthful of fur, Frisk snorted to herself, pushing back the hardest that she could so she could breathe anything besides the scent of stale cigarettes and the musk of his bones and flinching as her injured wrist sent a jolt of agony lancing up her arm.
“When did you start...” she muttered to herself, bitter and in pain and stinging with all the wrongs she was being forced to endure, but she didn’t say it nearly quietly enough. Sans heard her, and turned on her like the rabid beast he was, his grasp dragging up from the small of her back and to the leather collar protruding from the wrappings of her scarf. He pulled it tight, dragging her forwards until she was face to face with him, standing on the very tips of her toes and wide eyed as she faced down the fuming, furious monster she had slighted.
“you're on thin fuckin' ice after all tha shit ya pulled today, slut. one more fuckin' word outta you-” he seethed, shaking her by the hold he had on her collar and baring his fangs an inch from her nose, but before he could finish his threat, Papyrus intervened, inserting a hand between them and turning his brother away from his distraction firmly. This earned him a snap of Sans’ jaws and an instinctive snarl, but Papyrus stood both undaunted and unflinching, holding his gaze stalwartly.
“I AM SAYING YOU HAVE DUTIES TO SEE TO AND THAT ARE EXPECTED OF A MONSTER IN YOUR POSITION THAT WOULD TAKE YOU AWAY FROM HER AND YOUR ABILITY TO. CALM YOURSELF,” he instructed both staunchly and carefully, arching his bony brows to indicate that he meant none of the offense that Sans had assumed he had, and Sans, huffing out frigid clouds of breath as his temper settled, slowly loosened from his rigid posture, allowing Frisk to settle back onto her feet.
“...'spose you're right,” he grunted, shrugging off his momentary anger with a roll of his shoulders (and an acerbic glare, shot at Frisk from the corner of his socket), and Papyrus, seemingly convinced that he had successfully calmed him, nodded firmly and returned his hand to his own custody, propping it on one extended hip bone.
“VERY WELL THEN, IT IS SETTLED. I STILL HAVE THE REST OF MY ROUNDS TO FINISH, BUT YOU SHOULD TAKE HER HOME AND GET HER SETTLED... PERHAPS OUT OF THOSE SOAKED CLOTHES. IF I RECALL CORRECTLY, HUMANS CAN FREEZE,” he remarked with clear worry in his voice, his gaze moving over Frisk’s obviously ruined clothes with a concerned tilt to his fanged mouth, and Sans, snorting out a humorless chortle, sent his brother a crooked smirk, brimming with impending and cruel intent.
“oh, i'll get 'er out of 'em. no worries there,” he affirmed smugly, the edge of his smirk that Frisk could see so sharp that it sent a shiver down her spine (no… oh gods no-), and though Papyrus hesitated for a moment, flicking his magical gaze between his brother and the diminutive human in his grasp, he went on his way without further comment, walking along the path that led to Waterfall until he disappeared around the bend in the thin treeline, his torn scarf waving behind him in an emulation of farewell.
The moment he had disappeared from sight, Sans turned to look down on Frisk slowly, his self-satisfied smirk lingering around his sharp-toothed mouth as he twisted the collar in his grasp, shifting it until the ring faced the front. He spent a moment fumbling, one handed, with the chain at his side, a moment long enough for her to realize what he was doing, and for her to try to pull away from it… but it was to no avail. He was too strong, too ready for her to make an attempted escape; he resisted her twisting and pulling, ignored her pleas for mercy, and, once it was freed, clipped the length of chain back into place on her collar, the click of the lock much louder in her ears for all the symbolism that it carried.
She was trapped, all over again. And she doubted very, very much that he was going to make the mistake of letting her go again.
“heh… right back where ya belong,” he crooned to her mockingly, the hand once curled around the collar reaching up to stroke its rough knuckles along her tear stained cheek, and only chuckled menacingly when she flinched away from him as far as the chain now wrapped around his fist allowed her, arrogant in his successful capture. “now let’s go home, bitch.”
After bending to scoop the slush covered, beaten up backpack from the path and slinging it over his shoulder once more, he pulled the chain taut without preamble or warning, dragging her forward and against his chest; the suddenness of her changed posture forced her to clasp at the front of his jacket, dizzy from all of her exertion that day, and allowed him to wrap his free arm around the small of her back, his large hand very comfortably making its home on the curve of her ass. He squeezed his prize, delighting in the quiet squeal she let out, but the very next moment, his smirk was gone, replaced with a scowl that promised that he had forgotten none of her disobedience, and none of his promised recompense.
“we got a lotta shit ta iron out.”
And with a turn of his heel, they were gone, dissipating into a wisp of red mist blown away on the frigid breeze, only the fallen and ashen tree, a stray cigarette butt, and an abandoned, soaked through knit cap remaining behind to prove anyone had been there in the first place.